Kent Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, including the government affairs committee and serving on the board of directors for the Kent Downtown Partnership sparked his interest in running for office.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSome of the top issues for Sharp include impact fees and taxes that negatively affect businesses driving them away.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m all for better parks and as a city we need to do more to raise funds to help schools,\u201d Sharp said. \u201cI believe city government has to set priorities. The state\u2019s No. 1 priority is education, but they don\u2019t do that. For the city, infrastructure is critical. We have to improve the quality of life for citizens and support the value of having businesses come into the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sharp said if elected he will bring \u201cmore of a business owners perspective to the council. With money short, they have to be smart.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Michael Sealfon<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Michael Sealfon has decided to test the political waters for the first time by running for Kent City Council Position No. 7.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 67-year-old Sealfon said he is beginning his first foray into political campaigns because, \u201cFrom what I have seen politically all across the land it is time to see if I can make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He is an 18-year resident of Kent who was inspired to join in the political process after participating in numerous volunteer activities.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sealfon has a doctoral degree in chemistry. He was the technical director at Labcorp regional medical laboratory in Kent and medical laboratory technician program director at Renton Technical Laboratory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He is a member of the Citizen Advisory Committee for the Kent Regional Fire Authority and he is part of the Kent-4-Health Committee.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He is a retired Army officer serving in the medical service corp and a Vietnam veteran.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sealfon said he is very familiar with emergency management issues and can bring his expertise to the Council if elected.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t run if I didn\u2019t think I could contribute,\u201d Sealfon said. \u201cI\u2019d like to bring fiscal management to the Council and a fresh pair of eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He also noted he can \u201cinteract with the senior population very well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Along with being an amateur radio operator, Sealfon is also a flight instructor and flies for the Coast Guard Auxiliary.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dana Ralph has also announced she will be running for Position No. 7<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The in-person filing periods for candidates is June 6-10 and by mail the period is May 20 through June 10.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The primary election is Aug. 16 and the general election is Nov. 8. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kent City Council Position No. 7 has attracted two first-time political hopefuls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17923"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}